For many decades, carpet has been the floor covering of choice for improving both the aesthetics and comfort in residential homes and commercial buildings. Though very pleasing in appearance and convenience when new, the carpet over time inevitably is susceptible to staining by foods and beverages and also discoloration due to soil pick-up caused by foot traffic.
To minimize the effect of these assaults, various treatments have been applied to carpet either at the carpet mill or directly after installation (“early applied treatments”). Such early applied treatments include (a) fluoroaliphatic compounds and silsesquioxane polymers to provide soil resistance, (a1) fluoroaliphatic compounds that impart repellency to liquid spills and to prevent adherence to, and to facilitate release of, stains from fibers, (b) stainblockers to block dye sites to prevent acid-dye based stains from discoloring fibers, and (c) various combinations thereof. However, though these early applied treatments may impart good initial protection to carpet, the ability of the treated carpet fibers to resist both soiling and staining gradually diminishes over time due to foot abrasion and soil and stain buildup. At this point, the carpet must be cleaned to restore its initial appearance. Unfortunately, during cycles of carpet cleaning and use, factory treatments can become ineffective through contamination or may be removed from the carpet, leaving the carpet susceptible to accelerated discoloration from staining and soiling. Further, many conventional fabric and carpet treatment compositions are not effective at removing stains.
Despite these attempts, there continues to be a need an fibrous substrate cleaning composition that can simultaneously effectively clean the substrate, remove stains and provide long term anti-soiling and optionally stainblocking protection to the cleaned substrate.